WIRED: Elon Musk and the Dangers of Censoring Real-Time Flight Trackers. “Aircraft operators are required to report detailed information on their flight path to various national regulators, including the Federal Aviation Administration. That data is generally a matter of public record and is published to various websites popular amongst airline enthusiasts.”
Associated Press: Invisible military aircraft not captured on Google Maps. “A video said to show an invisible military aircraft at an Air Force base just outside Abilene, a city 150 miles (241 kilometers) west of Fort Worth, Texas, has spread widely on social media in recent days.”
University of Michigan: Cyber vulnerability in networks used by spacecraft, aircraft and energy generation systems. “A new attack discovered by the University of Michigan and NASA exploits a trusted network technology to create unexpected and potentially catastrophic behavior.”
CNBC: Google co-founder’s flying car startup is winding down. “Kittyhawk was founded as Zee.Aero in 2010 when Page recruited Sebastian Thrun, who had worked on self-driving cars and other experimental projects at Google, to create electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. The company unveiled a demonstration video of a flying car in 2017, and Thrun said he envisioned a time when people would be able to hail flying cars through an app like Lyft or Uber.”
Hackaday: It’s A Bird! It’s A Plane! It’s… A Live Air Traffic Plane Spotting Simulation . “By using publicly available information, software, and some ingenuity, [Information Zulu] has created a live simulation of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) for your simulated plane spotting pleasure.”
Digital Library of Georgia: Materials documenting the Georgia-based Eighth Air Force, who fought the air war on behalf of the United States against Nazi Germany in World War II, Are Now Available Online.. “The Eighth Air Force, an American bombing campaign against Nazi Germany, was World War II’s most extended military campaign. It was the only battle fought inside the German homeland until Allied soldiers crossed into Germany in the final months of the war. Activated in 1942 in Savannah, Georgia, the Eighth Air Force moved to England to support the Allied air war against Nazi Germany.”
Gizmodo: Feds Say YouTuber-Pilot Intentionally Crashed Plane for Views. “The pilot, YouTuber, and former Olympic snowboarder, Trevor Jacob, who posted a 13-minute video of himself escaping a crashing plane in December 2021, no longer has a license to fly. This comes after the Federal Aviation Administration wrapped up a 3-month long investigation that uncovered some pretty insane findings. In an April 11 letter to Jacob, first revealed in a New York Times report on Wednesday, the FAA said evidence shows he operated the flight to purposely cause it to crash, adding evidence like, ‘during this flight, you opened the left side pilot door before you claimed the engine had failed.’”
Business Insider: Ukrainian pilots launch ‘Buy Me A Jet’ campaign to help defeat Russia’s massive air superiority. “The Ukrainian military has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund the purchase of new fighter jets, say reports. In a video showing destroyed Ukrainian military equipment and devastated homes and towns, a Ukrainian pilot looks into the camera and says, ‘buy me a fighter jet.’”
CBC: Female wartime aircraft builders in Fort William to be celebrated on new website. “A 1999 documentary about the women who worked in Fort William’s Canadian Car and Foundry plant during the Second World War is getting new life as an interactive website. The site will combine material gathered for the original film with new material that was contributed by a staff member at the Thunder Bay Alstom plant — the former home of Can Car — according to Lakehead University history professor Ron Harpelle.”
TechRadar: Eagle-eyed Redditor spots a flying Stealth Bomber on Google Maps. “Google Maps is home to a lot of unusual sights, from strange pentagrams in Kazakhstan to a parked UFO in Romania. But a Reddit user has just spotted one of the rarest ones yet: a flying stealth bomber.”
Hull Live: Families share memories of airship disaster to mark 100th anniversary. “An appeal for information ahead of the 100th anniversary of an airship disaster that claimed dozens of lives has unearthed a range of ‘touching’ stories and artefacts from the families of casualties, survivors and witnesses. The R.38/ZR-2 exploded mid-flight and crashed into the Humber in front of thousands of onlookers in Hull on August 24 1921, leaving 44 of the aircraft’s 49-strong British and American crew dead.”
BBC: Just how hard is it to recycle a jumbo jet?. “Thanks to the pandemic and the subsequent collapse in air travel, around a quarter of the world’s passenger jets remain idle – parked at airports and storage facilities while their owners decide what to do with them. Some of those aircraft will never fly again.”
BBC: Appeal for tales of Hull airship crash which killed 44. “An appeal has been launched for stories and memorabilia ahead of the 100th anniversary of an airship disaster which killed 44 people. The R.38/ZR-2 exploded mid-flight in front of onlookers in Hull on 24 August 1921, before crashing into the River Humber, killing most of the crew. The airship, called the ‘Titanic of the skies’, was on a test flight before being handed over to the US Navy.”
NBC News: FAA finally OKs database to track pilot employment records, after 12 years of delays. “Twelve years after Colgan Flight 3407 crashed, the loved ones of the 50 victims finally got from the federal government what they’ve long been demanding — a pledge to create a U.S. database to keep track of bad pilots. But it could be a few more years before that long-awaited database is fully implemented.”
Portland Tribune: Spruce Goose archives could take flight with state grant. “If you think Howard Hughes’ plane the Spruce Goose is big (It is. It really is), then try this on for size: more than 1 million pieces of paper — documents, blueprints, original drawings and thousands of photographs. That’s what the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in Yamhill County holds in a stack of shelves, file cabinets and cardboard tubes related to construction of the giant flying boat.”
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